Some Books of the Month. 



FLOKENCE NIGHTINGALE IN 

 FICTION * 



This eagerly-expected no\el by the author of 

 The Dop Doctor ' ' is as strange, as daring, as 

 emotional, perhaps even more verbose than its pre- 

 decessor, and as paradoxical. In this book Miss 

 Craves, wiio writes under the name of Richard 

 Dehau, gives us a notable companion to her former 

 work. Uf that earlier story it was never doubted 

 that so ruthless a picture of the horrors of war 

 could only have been painted by a man; in the 

 present book there is a more pronounced feminity, 

 but just as virile a presentment of war's horrors. 

 What can be more realistic than this de.scription, the 

 superabundance of words strengthening the effect ? 

 The trodden slopes that were strewn with shattered 

 Millie rifles und smashed muskets. Higliland lioiiuets. bear- 

 skins and shakos, and dead and dyiiiir men in Itilts and 

 plaids and red coats, lying in queer contorted attitudes — 

 as if a giant child had heen play big at soldiers, and 

 had given the green hoard a spiteful kick and gone away 

 — were covered with a low shruh like hilherry. seemingly 

 laden with a plentiful crop of red fruit, yet they were 

 not berries but blood-drops. The grasses wept— the earth 

 was soaked— the river in the glen-bottom ran blood. 



This is no .story to be taken up for a half-hour's 

 diversion. When a writer dares to take two heroic 

 figures of the past, one at least of which is known 

 to all, to give them imaginary attributes, substitute 

 fiction for fact, and yet do this in such a way that 

 the fiction seemis only an unusual dress which makes 

 the personalities more vivid, anyone can see that the 

 writer de.serves to be studied, not skimmed; to be 

 leisui-ely read, not galloped through. 



NO TALE FOR THE UNSOPHISTICATED. 



Neither is this a tale for the un.sophisticated, as 

 the .scene to which the story owes its title will tell. 

 Hector Dunoisse, the central character, has fallen 

 before the charms of the beautiful Mrs. de Roux— 

 for her he has sacrificerj ;,-urity. ^- '^■■., and his 

 good name. Called upoi'. \iy *his father to claim the 

 succession as Hereditaijy Prince of Widinitz, he has 

 actually taken his mi^ress with him upon the jour- 

 ney to that country, and both have rightlv fjeen cast 

 out with .scorn and contumely. Returning to Paris. 

 Henriette dc Roux, \yho has tired of her ruin<d 

 lover, manages that he shall be despatched upon a 

 foreign mission. 0\vi',ng to an accident to the train 

 :it Joigny, he returns unexpectedly, to find Hciiriotte, 

 as he suppo.ses, dead, .ithough really only ins<"nsible. 

 To them comes the nf^w lover, an old .school com- 

 panion of Diimoisse, \iith whom he had fought a 

 duel, who, roughly tell.ing the rrude truth of Henri- 

 ette's shamelessness. ptyints out to Dunoisse that she 

 is reviving, and then c.lemands that Iwth of them 

 shall leave her to decicle who .shall retain her, the 

 test being the name she shall first pronounce upon 

 recovery, ^ 



'llPtween Two Thim'es. BIy Richard Dehan. (Heinemono, 



61. ] } 



A DRAMATIC PASSAGE. 



In that room of a woman's shame hung an ivory 

 crucifix, the Figure covered with a drapery of black 

 velvet, and the sight of this had jjrompted the 

 mockery in the man's voice, who thus continued: — 



" Whose name this woman speaks, his she sh.ill be. soul 

 and body! Is that agreed, my virtuous Dunoisse?" 



The cold blue eyes ami ihe burning black eyes met 

 and struck out a wnite-liot flame between them. 



"It is agreed!" said Dunoisse in a barely audible voice. 



" Her husband is out of the running— a scratched horse," 

 said de Moulny, sneering and Bmiiing. ..." He has 

 battened on the s.ile <vf her beauty, and climbed by the 

 ladder of her shame. Therefore, sliould those pale lips 

 frame ' Eugene,* it counts lees than nothing. . . . \\ e 

 st.and or fall by their droi)ping into the hair-weight balance 

 of Destiny a ' Hector ' or * Alaiii." " 



A silence fell. The ashes of the d.ving fire dropped upon 

 the tiled hearth with a little clicking echo. . . . Three 

 rivals w'aited by the moaning figure on the sofa in the 

 disa.rranged. disordered bedchamber. . . . De Moulny, 

 and Dunoisse, and .\iiotlier Whose Pace was hiibieu by a 

 veil 



" Ah. Jesu Christ ! . . ." 



The Name came from the pale lips of Henriette in a 

 'sighing whisper. Then silence fell again like a bla<'k 

 velvet pall. . . . Dunoisse and de ^lOulny. the fire of 

 lust and anger dead ashes between them, looked with 

 awe and horror, each in the other's face. And stronger 

 and clearer upon the strained and guilty cousciences of 

 both grew the iinjjression of an unseen Presence, awful, 

 condemnatory, relentless, all-potent, standing between them 

 in the rose-c^iioured room. 



HERO AND HEROINE, 



Dramatic .scenes such as this abound in a book of 

 which, though the plot is simple, and but few people 

 <x;cupy the stage the whole time, yet occasionally 

 the arena is crammed, and there are also bv-plots. 

 The heroine is Florence Nightingale, under the 

 alias of Ada Merling, with the additional attributes 

 of beauty, wealth and a hopeless love-story ; and 

 the hero Dunoisse, the young Frenchman, who is 

 credited with the noble deeds of Dunant, the Sw'iss 

 enthusiast who suggested the Red Cross Society. 

 It must not be forgotten. howe\er, that Miss Graves 

 tells us that " the stor\ is not a Viiographical record, 

 but a work of fiction founded u[ion the nxrk of in- 

 disputable fact." The period being Victorian, the 

 stvle is Victorian also, with this exception: that, as 

 the o[K'ning chapters describe the death of the hero, 

 thev belong to the present epoch of aeroplanes and 

 motors, Dunoisse wishing that thev had been in- 

 x'ented long l)efore, for in war thev would be in- 

 \'aluable. and in war will ronie their sujireme use. 

 " For the swift and easv removal of wounded from 

 the field of battle, a fleet of Army Hospital Service 

 aeroplanes will one day be built and equipjied and 

 organised by ('very civili.sed Government under the ' 

 rules of the Crimson Cross." 



THE hero's HISTORY. 



TIk' story begins at the sixth cliajiter, when we 

 learn that Dunois.se's birth was not quite regular, 

 his father, one of Napoleons marshals, ha\ing run 

 awav with his mother from the Carmelite convent 

 in which she was a jjrofes.sed nun. Grief for her 



